Laptop won't turn on

[Chiru]

Hi

 

My 7 year old laptop won*t boot anymore. Basically, what happens is when I press the power button, the button lights up but the screen stays black. The fan ramps up for a second then the laptop goes dead silent (which is not normal because the laptop is noisy). All the lights stay on (power button light etc).  I had this problem in the past and what helped is to let the laptop run until the battery would go out of juice. Then plug in the power chord and the laptop would run normally. Now that is not working anzmore.

 

What I was wondering is, I could buy a new motherboard from Aliexpress for 40 USD (processor included I think) would that fix my problem or is there no way around buying a new one?

 

Any suggestions?

 

Cheers

[Airdragonz]

As long as it's the exact same motherboard and you know what you are doing as far as replacing it goes, then everything should be fine. Make sure everything that is soldered to your current board is on the new motherboard, or at least know how to remove then solder them on yourself. 

[Schakal_No1]

If your Laptop has a way to clear CMOS (usually holding the power button for a long time but look in your manual) try this. Otherwise I agree with Airdragonz, but I would add that repairing a 7yo Laptop would not be worth it for me. Most of your components will probably fail in the next time anyways, 7 years is a long time for a laptop.

[Chiru]

1 hour ago, Airdragonz said:

As long as it's the exact same motherboard and you know what you are doing as far as replacing it goes, then everything should be fine. Make sure everything that is soldered to your current board is on the new motherboard, or at least know how to remove then solder them on yourself. 

Why and where would there be any soldering?

 

50 minutes ago, Schakal_No1 said:

Most of your components will probably fail in the next time anyways

Like what? Mousepad failed using a usb mouse now, headphone jack failed - only speakers work. What else could fail? Battery last only 5 minutes, using cable always.

[Airdragonz]

1 minute ago, Chiru said:

Why and where would there be any soldering?

A lot of times, laptop manufacturers solder components to the motherboard (cpu is a very typical example). Apple even soldered the ssd to the motherboard in their 2016 Macook Pro. So when you are replacing your mobo, make sure you are just removing the motherboard (and cpu) and nothing else. Or if you do remove something else, make sure the other board has that part soldered on already if you don't want to solder it yourself.

[Chiru]

14 minutes ago, Airdragonz said:

A lot of times, laptop manufacturers solder components to the motherboard (cpu is a very typical example). Apple even soldered the ssd to the motherboard in their 2016 Macook Pro. So when you are replacing your mobo, make sure you are just removing the motherboard (and cpu) and nothing else. Or if you do remove something else, make sure the other board has that part soldered on already if you don't want to solder it yourself.

the hdd is defo not soldered, it is in a removable tray on the backside of the laptop. I can access it very easily.

 

As far as the cpu goes, I don't know. But the new mobo should have the cpu included I think.

[ElSeniorTaco]

I am going to cautiously say, you probably wont have to solder anything.

If the motherboard comes with a cpu soldered to the board, then your replacement will have it in there.

I have rarely found components soldered to the board that you wont also get on the replacement board.

And keyboards/mouses, speakers, etc, usually just plug right in, most of the time they are mounted to the case and not the board anyhow.

 

Soldering or de-soldering a bga chip or some surface mount component isn't exactly something most people do. 

And you usually get a replacement board with those components still on there.

Unless they are a components dealer (like dealing in SMD components and BGA Chips), they will probably sell the board with everything, as removing components devalues the parts you are trying to sell to your usual field tech and diy guy.

 

I don't know if form rules allow you to post links, if so, post it. you can probably tell if something important is missing from the pictures.

 

 

 

 

 

There are some laptops that come with some harddrive soldered to the board but that is usually some eMMC memory.

Most of the time these are small, like the 64gb one that is built into my asus transformer.

Some manufactures do solder on components that they probably shouldn't though, but this isn't normal practice that I have seen.  

Things like the macs with the SSD, ram, and cpu all soldered in place is not that common in other manufactures and older computers and imo it's bad practice.

 

Don't get me wrong, I am sure its great to make things smaller and lighter.

And I am sure if you are the manufacture, you will make a ton of money off selling replacement parts, well replacement PART seeing as everything is all in one.

 

But in every other sense, repairing/replacing simple parts becomes more expensive for everyone from the shop to the manufacture.

And becomes impractical for anyone without the right tools.

 

I mean, even the manufacture doing a warranty repair will end up having less trouble if they just replace the entire board with everything soldered on and throwing the old one out.

I am curious how much more that will cost them more in the long run for simple warranty repairs.

 

For example lets say a bad stick of ram that probably costs them almost nothing to buy but requires replacement of everything

verses

having a tech spend a few minutes unscrewing things and tossing in a replacement part.

 

But I am rambling now..

 

Moving back to the issue at hand.

Post a link if you can, most of the time they will list the speed(ghz) of the cpu that is mounted, that will be your first clue that its on there. 

Otherwise, without specs, we will need to see a picture.

Most likely if anything were to be missing that needs to be soldered, I would guess it is that.

[Chiru]

17 hours ago, ElSeniorTaco said:

I am going to cautiously say, you probably wont have to solder anything.

If the motherboard comes with a cpu soldered to the board, then your replacement will have it in there.

I have rarely found components soldered to the board that you wont also get on the replacement board.

And keyboards/mouses, speakers, etc, usually just plug right in, most of the time they are mounted to the case and not the board anyhow.

 

Soldering or de-soldering a bga chip or some surface mount component isn't exactly something most people do. 

And you usually get a replacement board with those components still on there.

Unless they are a components dealer (like dealing in SMD components and BGA Chips), they will probably sell the board with everything, as removing components devalues the parts you are trying to sell to your usual field tech and diy guy.

 

I don't know if form rules allow you to post links, if so, post it. you can probably tell if something important is missing from the pictures.

 

 

 

 

 

There are some laptops that come with some harddrive soldered to the board but that is usually some eMMC memory.

Most of the time these are small, like the 64gb one that is built into my asus transformer.

Some manufactures do solder on components that they probably shouldn't though, but this isn't normal practice that I have seen.  

Things like the macs with the SSD, ram, and cpu all soldered in place is not that common in other manufactures and older computers and imo it's bad practice.

 

Don't get me wrong, I am sure its great to make things smaller and lighter.

And I am sure if you are the manufacture, you will make a ton of money off selling replacement parts, well replacement PART seeing as everything is all in one.

 

But in every other sense, repairing/replacing simple parts becomes more expensive for everyone from the shop to the manufacture.

And becomes impractical for anyone without the right tools.

 

I mean, even the manufacture doing a warranty repair will end up having less trouble if they just replace the entire board with everything soldered on and throwing the old one out.

I am curious how much more that will cost them more in the long run for simple warranty repairs.

 

For example lets say a bad stick of ram that probably costs them almost nothing to buy but requires replacement of everything

verses

having a tech spend a few minutes unscrewing things and tossing in a replacement part.

 

But I am rambling now..

 

Moving back to the issue at hand.

Post a link if you can, most of the time they will list the speed(ghz) of the cpu that is mounted, that will be your first clue that its on there. 

Otherwise, without specs, we will need to see a picture.

Most likely if anything were to be missing that needs to be soldered, I would guess it is that.

Hi thanks for sharing all the info.

 

here are all the motherboards:

 

https://www.aliexpress.com/wholesale?catId=0&initiative_id=SB_20180123105904&SearchText=emachines+e640+motherboard

 

I had in mind this one because the free CPU that is included:

 

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/NEW75-LA-5912P-REV-1-0-MBNA102001-MB-NA102-001-For-acer-aspire-5551-emachines-E640/32672803634.html?spm=2114.search0104.3.8.1e5fd6c89SBWkA&ws_ab_test=searchweb0_0,searchweb201602_2_10065_10068_10344_10342_10343_10340_10341_10084_10617_10083_10616_10615_10307_10134_10313_10059_10534_100031_10604_10103_441_442_5920020_10142,searchweb201603_36,ppcSwitch_2&algo_expid=899e2fc6-29ff-4b7a-8182-4de4f8ca15fe-1&algo_pvid=899e2fc6-29ff-4b7a-8182-4de4f8ca15fe&priceBeautifyAB=2

 

or this one that has heatsink and cpu included:

 

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/for-GATEWAY-NEW95-NOTEBOOK-NV53A-MB-BL002-001-Motherboard-NEW75-LA-5912P-heatsink-CPU-LA-5911P/32845029297.html?spm=2114.search0104.3.15.1e5fd6c89SBWkA&ws_ab_test=searchweb0_0,searchweb201602_2_10065_10068_10344_10342_10343_10340_10341_10084_10617_10083_10616_10615_10307_10134_10313_10059_10534_100031_10604_10103_441_442_5920020_10142,searchweb201603_36,ppcSwitch_2&algo_expid=899e2fc6-29ff-4b7a-8182-4de4f8ca15fe-2&algo_pvid=899e2fc6-29ff-4b7a-8182-4de4f8ca15fe&priceBeautifyAB=2

 

There are seemingly three OEM brands: OnePino, KEFU and NOKOTION

 

But i am seeing this 

[ElSeniorTaco]

I can see from the first link that this motherboard is socketed, which means the cpu is removable, you can easily swap your cpu into another board.

But I am going to warn up front.

The computer not booting up at all, not even making it to post, likely means either motherboard or CPU issue.

There is that chance that your CPU died..

Even though cpu's can last a long time, that doesn't make them fail proof.

And in this case, I would get a cpu with the board as well if its not a big price difference. Its worth a shot

Be warned that when any hardware goes bad, it always has that chance of taking out other pieces around it.

What I mean to say by that is, if your cpu is bad, there is a slight (small but none the less its still a chance) chance that if you swap it into this new board it can take that board out as well.

 

I've done it before when i was young.

I fried two motherboards and was about to do a third when I stopped and thought, what if the cpu did it.

And sure enough, the cpu was frying any board i plugged it into.

In my case the cpu had a scratch on the die itself which probably short circuited a ton of stuff.

But that doesn't mean it cant happen to a cpu that isn't physically (externally anyhow) damaged.

[Chiru]

22 minutes ago, ElSeniorTaco said:

I can see from the first link that this motherboard is socketed, which means the cpu is removable, you can easily swap your cpu into another board.

But I am going to warn up front.

The computer not booting up at all, not even making it to post, likely means either motherboard or CPU issue.

There is that chance that your CPU died..

Even though cpu's can last a long time, that doesn't make them fail proof.

And in this case, I would get a cpu with the board as well if its not a big price difference. Its worth a shot

Be warned that when any hardware goes bad, it always has that chance of taking out other pieces around it.

What I mean to say by that is, if your cpu is bad, there is a slight (small but none the less its still a chance) chance that if you swap it into this new board it can take that board out as well.

 

I've done it before when i was young.

I fried two motherboards and was about to do a third when I stopped and thought, what if the cpu did it.

And sure enough, the cpu was frying any board i plugged it into.

In my case the cpu had a scratch on the die itself which probably short circuited a ton of stuff.

But that doesn't mean it cant happen to a cpu that isn't physically (externally anyhow) damaged.

Of course, I would buy the one with CPU included, not worth transferring a 7 year old CPU to a new board.

 

But how can board, cpu + heatsink be so cheap? 50 bucks is like nothing and its an AMD CPU.

 

Btw, would it be possible and worthwhile to delidd the new CPU? I did that successfully on my desktop PC (I7 7700k). The laptop runs so hot, that I could make fried eggs on it, I do already have an external laptop cooler.

 

If it would be possible I would do it.

 

Btw, what is that weird pipe that goes from the fan to the motherboard?

 

[asus killer]

is it really worth it to spend more money on used mobo and cpu from china on a 7 year old laptop, when you don't even know the problem in the 1st place?

[ElSeniorTaco]

1 hour ago, asus killer said:

is it really worth it to spend more money on used mobo and cpu from china on a 7 year old laptop, when you don't even know the problem in the 1st place?

is a good point tbh.

But its cheap because its old, if it was old but brand new (as in still being manufactured) that would be a different story.

But im betting this part has been sitting for months on a shelf, waiting for an owner.

At that point the sellers just want the thing gone, to them the shelf space is more valuable then the motherboard that has been sitting on it for a while.

Also it is possible that you the motherboard is not the issue, and so you are taking a risk. Diagnosing hardware isnt exactly a precise thing.

But based off what you said :

23 hours ago, Chiru said:

The fan ramps up for a second then the laptop goes dead silent (which is not normal because the laptop is noisy)

I would say motherboard or cpu,

If it normally is quiet after starting, then it could be the inverter in the screen, backlight on the screen, or some other random component.

An easy way to tell is to get a usb keyboard, plug it in.

Start the computer, wait for a few minutes, then press numlock or capslock. 

See if the capslock or numlock light can turn on and off. 

If so, you might have a bad screen or something else.